Damned Are the Guilty

Punisher knew that he needed to get some distance between the god and him. He backpedaled a bit to gain some distance while chucking a grenade towards Discord, using it more as a distraction than for actual damage. Punisher snarled slightly when Discord caught the grenade with his magic and watched with a toothy grin as it exploded harmlessly. Punisher vaulted over an over turned carriage and hid behind it, trying to formulate a plan of attack.

'So, god of chaos. Able to stop bullets and grenades like they're nothing,' Punisher summed up as he glanced out from behind his cover to see Discord was making the statues dance with one another. 'Need to lure him into a false sense of security. Hopefully I can do that before he decides to take this seriously. If he turns all that power on me...'

Punisher ripped off the door to the carriage and hurled it towards Discord, who lazily drifted out of the way to avoid being hit. Punisher switched his assault rifle to sniper mode and he shot a metal plate to the side of the god, bouncing the bullet off of the metal plate and towards the back of the god. The sniper round hit the magic barrier once more, getting Discord to raise an eyebrow as he glanced behind him.

"Come now, do you really have to kill me? Can't we talk about this over a nice cup of tea?" Discord asked with a chuckle as he snapped his fingers, creating a massive teapot that poured its contents into the streets. Punisher's eyes went wide as a tidal wave of steaming hot tea crashed through the streets and came right towards him. Without wasting a second Punisher leapt up onto the carriage and gripped it tight, seconds before the wave of tea slammed into the side.

Punisher could feel the heat from the tea even though he wasn't in it and from the way it melted lampposts, he was glad that he wasn't. He cast a glance at one of the few golden statues that used to be a living being to find that they were completely unaffected by the tea, getting Punisher to narrow his eyes with suspicion.

"Tea not your thing? Sorry, I just never know what my friends like," Discord said with a laugh as he snapped his fingers and a moment later the river of tea vanished, allowing Punisher to leap off onto solid ground. He took aim with his shotgun, but he didn't pull the trigger as he knew he'd be wasting bullets. With a snarl he raced down a side alley, leaping onto a ladder and started to pull himself towards the rooftops two rungs at a time.

'Reality control, with no rhyme or reason for his actions. He's a god of chaos alright,' Punisher figured out as he rolled onto the rooftops, racing over to the edge and glancing down to see Discord floating through the street, looking around with mild interest for the human. Punisher pulled out a small disc and took careful aim, before throwing it like a ninja star towards Discord. It struck the back of his shield, but unlike the bullets the adhesive on the disc prevented it from falling to the ground.

'Let's see if this gets him rattled,' Punisher thought before he hurled himself off the smaller building, landing on Discords back and wrapping his arms around the gods neck. Discord spun his neck around a full one eighty to see what the heck Punisher was doing, but the moment he did so Punisher slammed a fist into the face of Discord. To Punishers surprise, the blow knocked Discords head off of his shoulders and sent it tumbling through the streets.

"Oh dear, I seem to be falling apart," Discord said with a small chuckle before the rest of his body fell apart as well, leaving Punisher to fall through the air and to the streets bellow. He slammed into the roof of a carriage, getting him to grunt in pain as he bounced off and collapsed onto the ground. He ignored the pain as he forced himself back up to his feet, glaring over at the chaos god. Discord let out a laugh as he body reformed, fixing him to perfection a moment later. But Punisher could also see that the explosive disc that he had attached to the god had remained attached as well.

"I swear this always happens to me whenever I meet new people," Discord said in a flustered voice as he clutched at his limbs, which were still trying to fall off. But the smile on his face told the Punisher that he was simply being baited or mocked. He didn't know which he found more irritating. "But dear Faust in heaven you are determined to kill me, aren't you? Is that how you greet any stranger you meet, by trying to turn them into a corpse?"

"I punish the guilty. And that's what you are," Punisher replied curtly before whipping out his shotgun, taking aim at the god and preparing to fire. Discord smirked and leaned in towards the Punisher, having perfect faith in his godly magic. That fact alone made the Punisher crack a thin smile. He pressed a small button on his glove and detonated the disc, causing a massive explosion to shatter Discord's barrier and hurl the god into the streets. He skidded to a stop at the Punisher's feet, where the human placed a boot on the gods throat and aimed the shotgun at his head.

"Guilty? Me? Guilty of what?" Discord asked, able to talk perfectly fine despite Punisher's efforts to crush his throat. "Pouring you a drink? Trying to be your friend? Or if you mean all those ponies, they're perfectly fine." Discord snapped his fingers and a moment later all of the ponies that had been in gold were free, all of them looking over at Punisher with fear in their eyes. "Hi everypony, how's it going?"

"Um, hi Discord," one of them said back, but their voice caused Punisher's eyes to narrow. They weren't afraid of Discord, who had just turned them all into gold, but were afraid of him. Punisher glanced down at the still smiling god, who raised his eyebrows at Punisher in a mocking way.

"You're not afraid of him? After what he did?" Punisher asked them, his voice alone getting the crowd of ponies to back away from him.

"What? Turn us into gold. He asked if he could do that and we said sure," one of the braver ponies said to Punisher, who looked at the pony with confusion. He then glanced down at Discord once more to see that the god was working on his nails.

"You didn't hurt them?" Punisher asked slowly, like he was missing a part of a joke.

"Of course not! These are my friends!" Discord said as he motioned to the ponies with a toothy grin. "I'm not evil, at least not anymore, and I've come to appreciate every pony in this crazy world of mine. Everypony that you came here to defend agreed to scream and get turned to gold," Discord said as his smile turned sinister. "I'm not evil, my murder happy friend. I'm bait."

And then a layer of purple magic wrapped itself around Punisher, ripping him from his feet and hurling him into the air. Before he could realize what was happening the magic slammed him into the side of a building with enough force to crack the side of it. Pain flooded Punisher's senses before he was slammed into another building, striking his head as he did so and causing his vision to go blurry.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw the purple alicorn from yesterday, horn aglow and a smile of vengeance upon her face. Punisher was then lifted into the air above the ground, before he was dropped into the streets below. He glared at the alicorn all the way to the ground and then everything went black.

.45

"I'll admit, that felt good," Twilight said as to Celestia as the two walked over to where the human lay motionless in the streets, a bloody scrap on the side of his head from slamming into a building. As Twilight begrudgingly healed the wound, Celestia walked over to where Discord lay and extended a hoof to him.

"Thank you for helping us with our human problem, Discord," Celestia said as he took her hoof, pulling him back up to his feet.

"It was no problem at all, my dear. But thank you for the warning about his weapons in advanced. I may be a god, but I'm certain that even one of those bullets would have done some serious damage to me. Why, they may have knocked some sense into me," Discord smiled with a small bow to Celestia, before the both of them looked over at Twilight, who was securing the human. She used her magic to pin his limbs to his side, before trapping him in a sphere of magic that even Discord would have trouble punching through.

"I am glad that you are safe, though," Celestia told Discord, who raised an eyebrow in interest. "After everything that this human has done, I was afraid that he would kill you as well. But was my idea correct?"

"Yep. The moment I showed him that the ponies liked me and that they were fine, he seemed confused with how to deal with me," Discord said with a toothy grin, before rubbing his hands together. "This was fun and all, but now I believe I get to have my end of the bargain. If either of you need me, I will be redecorating Princess Luna's room."

He vanished in a laugh, getting Twilight to look over at Celestia with a smirk. "You got him to help us by allowing him to redecorate your sisters room?"

"Well, I wasn't going to let him change my room," Celestia said as she held a hoof to her heart, smiling at Twilight. Her smile then left her face as she glared down at the human, who was still fast asleep. "And speaking of my sister, I will contact her and see if she can learn anything about our new guest from his dreams. But until then, we cannot keep him trapped in your magic. Well we could, but I'm afraid of leaving him..."

"How about we throw him in a dungeon cell and forget about him for fifty or sixty years?" Twilight asked with a grim smile, one that gained her a look from Celestia. "I'm kidding, princess. At least about the years. But I do think we should take him to our most secure prison. He's already killed so many."

"That I can agree on. We need a place to watch and learn about him while keeping him contained at the same time," Celestia agreed with her student, while also adding her magic to Twilight's so that the magical restraints around the human were strengthened. "I do not want him in the Canterlot Dungeons, though. Aside from the guards being useless, that place has a history of being broken out of. And this is the last inmate I'd want to escape."

"How about the forest prison? Nopony ever wants to escape it because the surrounding area is so inhospitable and is inhabited with ferocious monsters," Twilight suggested and a moment later Celestia nodded in agreement.

"Yes, that seems like the best solution for now," Celestia agreed with a shake of her head before she and Twilight picked up the human with their magic. "And I cannot wait to see how this human reacts when he finds himself in an inescapable place. Perhaps he'll finally learn how to make nice."

Twilight laughed at the thought before both princesses vanished with their prisoner in a flash of light.